


Lucky Timing

by remanth



Series: 221B Ficlets [11]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, All Hell Breaks Loose, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 20:17:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 3,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4193490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remanth/pseuds/remanth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An intrepid photographer takes a photo that leads to Mycroft being exactly where he doesn't want to be: in the headline news</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. All Hell Breaks Loose

“All Hell is about to break loose,” John commented with a smile as he read the newspaper that morning. 

“While your metaphor is colorful, I fail to see the relevance,” Sherlock replied from his spot at the kitchen table. He didn’t even look up from the microscope, merely arched an eyebrow in John’s direction. 

“You would if you read the newspaper,” John laughed, shaking the paper a little so that it rustled. “ _Mycroft’s_ in the news today.”

 _That_ got Sherlock’s attention and he jumped up from his chair and hurried over to John. Mycroft made it his business to stay out of the news and in the shadows. Most people in the government didn’t even know he existed and those that did knew the power he wielded. As Sherlock grabbed the paper, his eyes scanned through the words quickly. Mycroft’s name jumped out at him along with the photograph. There was Mycroft with several members of Parliament, his face turned away and mostly obscured. Through design, most likely, though whoever had taken this photo had gotten incredibly lucky with timing. The headline read “Secret Man in Power?”

“All Hell indeed,” Sherlock smirked and flopped down on the couch. He draped his legs over John’s and reread the article carefully. “I hope that photographer knows to run and hide under his bed.”


	2. Regrets

“This comes with my regrets, Mycroft, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to take a vacation,” the administrator said, shaking his head. “This article is fanning too many questions.”

“You know what I have an eye on at the moment,” Mycroft argued coldly, clasping his hands together and setting them lightly on his desk. “It’s just speculation, no real story or evidence. Some photographer got lucky and managed to get a partial shot of my face. I can’t afford a vacation right now.”

“Either way, it’s done,” the man shrugged, holding out his hands in a surrendering gesture. There were a few more details to discuss and then Mycroft was out the door, fuming and making plans. But first, he had to do something he was not looking forward to. He had to stop at his brother’s flat and ask for a favor.

“What brings the British Government here?” Sherlock asked from his spot on the couch when Mycroft let himself into the flat. He was draped over John, some show playing on the telly neither of them was paying attention to.

“Much as I hate to say it, I’ve come to ask a favor,” Mycroft said stiffly. “The photographer who took my picture. I want him found and any information he has on me taken back.”


	3. Dreams

After Mycroft left the flat, and Sherlock had given him enough time to get far enough away, he burst into amused laughter. John stared at him for a few startled seconds before joining in, one arm wrapped around his belly. It was a few minutes before either stopped laughing and caught their breath.

“Never in my furthest dreams did I ever think Mycroft would ask me for a personal favor,” Sherlock chuckled, shifting on the couch so that he was sitting up rather than on top of John. “I suppose if you wait long enough, you see everything.”

“I wouldn’t have imagined Mycroft needing a personal favor for something like this,” John commented, letting his fingers rest on the back of Sherlock’s neck. This was something they did in the privacy of their flat. Touch grounded both of them. “Doesn’t he have all kinds of power with his job and people to order around?”

“Didn’t you notice, John?” Sherlock laughed again, a smug sound this time. “He’s out of work at the moment. If I were the powers-that-be, I would have him take a vacation until this blows over. And that’s what they did.”

“I saw he wasn’t happy about something,” John replied. “I assumed it was the photo itself. Well, shall we get started? We have a photographer to bother.”


	4. Checkmate

Jeff Hill, the photographer who’d managed to get a partial shot of Mycroft’s face, sat congratulating himself as he stared at the pictures he’d taken that day. There were rumors, almost urban legends, of the man behind the power in the government. No one knew his name, knew what he looked like, or whether he even existed at all. By now, nearly everyone had heard them. 

“Checkmate,” he murmured, smiling at the obscured face of the man in the picture. He still had no idea who he was but now he had something to start with. And there was no way he was letting this go. Not until he knew everything he could. “I’m going to find you and drag you into the light.”

This wasn’t the first time Jeff had seen the man. Whenever he was taking photos of government officials, parliamentary members, or even some of the royal family, this man tended to be in the background. He seemed comfortable in his surroundings, no matter where he was. And that told Jeff that he was usually in the middle of power. How, though? 

“This isn’t the last of it,” Jeff promised the picture as he put it and it’s companions into a folder. The folder then went into a file cabinet with other folders. “I’m gonna find you, buddy.”


	5. Penny For Your Thoughts

“Penny for your thoughts?” John asked as he watched Sherlock move around the small flat. “I can hear the gears grinding from here.”

It hadn’t taken them long at all to find the flat once they had the photographer’s name. A quick call to the newspaper with Sherlock pretending to be a client desiring to hire the man had netted his name. Then it was just an internet search and they had him. Jeff Hill.

The flat was modest, filled with camera equipment and framed photographs on the walls. Some seemed to be taken by him and others John recognized as famous photographs. The place was almost ruthlessly clean and spartan, a stack of magazines on the coffee table the only clue that someone actually lived here. In the bedroom, a notebook lay open on the bed that documented the photographer’s search for Mycroft and all the information he had so far gathered. Which, to be quite honest, was nothing more than the one photograph, a rumor, and some cryptic talk about a man always seen with those in power.

“I don’t think Mr. Hill is all that much of a threat,” Sherlock finally said after he had finished scanning the flat. A key in the lock interrupted him before he could say more. “Looks like our quarry is home. Brilliant.”


	6. Relief

Sherlock breathed a quiet sigh of relief at knowing that their quarry was close. He hadn’t been looking forward to the waiting until someone came back. The door swung open and a man could be heard grumbling on the other side. Sherlock caught a few words here and there: something to do with managers and photographers. He didn’t even bother to look into the flat as he turned and kicked his door closed. A camera case and a coat dropped onto the chair next to the door.

John moved to Sherlock’s side, hands clenched into loose fists at his sides and his shoulders squared. It was the same stance he fell into every time there was danger. The core of Captain John Watson was still there and Sherlock enjoyed seeing it every time it came out. A grin crossed his face as Sherlock glanced at John which was mirrored back at him. This was the best part of the cases, the coming together and reaching the conclusion. The rush and adrenaline and pleasure.

“Hello, Mr. Hill,” John said, voice smooth and even and just a touch sharp. “I believe you’ve angered someone you shouldn’t have. We need to discuss some things.”

“What are you two doing here?” Jeff snapped, glaring at Sherlock and John. “Get out of my flat, you bastards!”


	7. Rejection

Sherlock studied the photographer while John kept him distracted. There was no fear just anger on his face and Sherlock realized this wasn’t the first time random strangers had shown up in his apartment. For a moment, Sherlock wondered what the others had come for and what Jeff had done then dismissed it. That wasn’t important. Mycroft’s pictures were.

“We want everything you have on Mycroft Holmes,” John continued when Sherlock made no move to speak. “Every picture, every piece of information. And you’re going to stop taking pictures of him.”

“No,” Jeff replied, shaking his head. Sherlock wasn’t surprised at the rejection but John’s fingers twitched into a fist. Jeff wore a look of glee as he moved over to the couch and sat down. “And if you’re here asking for them, it means that I’m onto something. Besides, you gave me something I didn’t have: a name.”

“Last chance,” John warned, stepping towards Jeff. His voice slipped a little deeper, the smooth tone giving way to anger and command. “Give us what we came for.”

“It’ll be easier for you,” Sherlock murmured. “You don’t want to know what can happen.”

“Maybe once you have something to use against me,” Jeff said smugly, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back negligently against the couch. “You can come back.”


	8. The Ties That Bind

Mycroft Holmes was bored. This state of mind wasn’t something that happened to him often. But with this forced vacation, he didn’t have work. After staring at the same page of his book for the last 10 minutes, Mycroft decided to go for a walk. It had been a while since he walked just to walk.

He ended up in a small park, sitting on a metal bench with his umbrella next to him. Children played and screamed nearby though, for once, their voices weren’t annoying. And sitting here gave Mycroft time to think. There was a saying that he knew, one that he tried to put into use staying in Sherlock’s life: the ties that bind. But there were ties and then there were ties.

The ties that kept him to his work were the desire to be engaged and wield quiet power. It took great skill and finesse which he delighted in. Then there were the ties of family, obligation, duty, and love. Those ties kept him in a constant state of worry over Sherlock. Less so, now, with John in Sherlock’s life. Which led to even more ties to John, gratitude and obligation. Sitting there, Mycroft realized it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing to be tied. It kept him connected to the world and bound.


	9. Walking on Eggshells

“Well that was interesting,” John muttered sardonically in the cab on the way back to Baker Street. “I was hoping it was going to work.”

“I didn’t expect it to but there was a chance,” Sherlock said, staring out the window for a moment then turning to John. As always when they were in a cab, their fingers were twined together between them on the seat. He squeezed John’s hand and smiled. “But look at it this way: no more walking on eggshells. The polite way failed. Time for the not-so-polite way.”

As John grinned, his eyes lighting with the glee that came from anticipation, Sherlock turned back to the window. He let the city flow past his eyes and he thought. There were many ways to handle Jeff Hill. How far did he want to take this? Mycroft would surely like things to be done as quietly as possible. And as quickly, considering they’d inadvertently given the photographer more information about Mycroft.

“Looks like someone’s impatient,” John said, pulling Sherlock out of his thoughts. “Wonder how he knew.”

“Mycroft always finds out one way or another,” Sherlock replied, annoyance flashing in his eyes. When he saw Mycroft watching them, Sherlock deliberately lifted John’s hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the knuckles. “Let’s go talk to my brother.”


	10. Wild Goose Chase

“I hope you two haven’t been on a wild goose chase,” Mycroft said once John and Sherlock got out of the cab. A slight tightening of his lips was the only evidence that he’d seen the kiss and was uncomfortable with public displays of affection. Which was one of the reasons why Sherlock did it. 

“Let’s head upstairs,” John said before Sherlock could say anything. He rubbed a thumb over Sherlock’s hand. “I could use some tea.”

Mycroft and Sherlock followed him up the stairs, a somewhat tense silence in John’s wake. The silence continued while John made tea in the kitchen. Sherlock dropped down onto the couch, spreading his legs out over it while Mycroft took John’s usual chair. When the tea was ready, John brought it out and sat on the couch, shoving Sherlock’s legs out of the way. With a grin, Sherlock just draped his legs back over John’s lap.

“So?” Mycroft asked after sipping his tea. “Did you find the photographer?”

“Yes we did,” Sherlock replied negligently, draping one hand over the back of the couch as he drank his tea. “And he’s fairly confident and smug. Wouldn’t give us the photographs or anything else he had. Though he hadn’t had your name, until we gave it to him. This might be more of an unanticipated bother.


	11. Bones

“You were supposed to retrieve the information he had,” Mycroft said angrily, glaring at Sherlock. “Not give him more.”

“It wasn’t my intention to give him more,” Sherlock drawled, rolling his eyes. “But maybe your work does need to be dragged out of the shadows. One man shouldn’t have _too_ much power, now should he?”

“All right, girls, stop bickering,” John interrupted before Mycroft could speak again. He rested a hand on Sherlock’s ankle, thumb rubbing, when Sherlock opened his mouth to protest. “It was an accident and it was mine. There’s no undoing it now. But I’ve been thinking about what we can do to fix this and I came up with something. Tabloids.”

“Tabloids?” Mycroft repeated flatly. “How is bringing in more newspapers going to help?”

“We give them a story,” John shrugged while Sherlock grinned at him suddenly. He smiled back before continuing. “We give them our version of the story, something so outlandish that it couldn’t possibly be true. Sprinkle in enough truth to make the lies more believable. Surely this is something you’re familiar with, Mycroft? Then Jeff Hill will no longer have a story and his information about you will be useless.”

“This isn’t going to go well,” Mycroft muttered, nodding and rubbing a hand over his face. “I can feel it in my bones.”


	12. Bless

_Breaking News_

_You’ve wanted to know about the man behind the scenes of power and we finally got an interview with him. The man, who will only go by the initials M.H., sat down with us to talk about his role in the government._

_Turns out, he’s the driving force behind nearly everything. Secret police, foreign diplomacy, events in other countries, he’s in control of it all. Want to know why the Korean president was elected? M.H. has the answers. He explained that he was a network of connections in the diplomacy community and among intelligence agencies._

_A frequent guest at Buckingham Palace, M.H. has the ear of the royal family. Many suggestions from him have become policy. He’s also been seen in the company of several PM’s, whispering and influencing. Whenever your PM might have done something that seemed out of place, it was likely M.H. pushing for it._

_But, M.H. hastens to reassure this humble journalist, he has no designs on world domination or for anything else than what he has. He works for the good of the country, promoting policy and decisions that he feels serves us best._

“Aw, he thinks he can head me off with this,” Jeff laughed as he dropped the tabloid newspaper on the table. “That’s so sweet. Bless.”


	13. Sunday Paper

“How could you have gone through with this insane idea?” the same administrator who’d made Mycroft take a vacation exploded, dropping his Sunday paper onto the table with a sharp rustle. “You have no idea the damage you could cause with this!”

“So far, none,” Mycroft replied smoothly, taking a sip of tea. “And it may have headed off quite a bit of damage. I’ve essentially taken the wind out of Jeff Hill’s sails with regards to the story he thought he had.”

“That may be and it may not,” the administrator argued shaking his head. He scrubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “Who’s idea was this? This doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you would come up with.”

“It was my brother’s partner’s idea,” Mycroft admitted, smiling ruefully. It was quite true that he wouldn’t have come up with this; he’d merely have made the photographer disappear. “John manages to think outside the box and I think his idea may have worked. If Hill continues with his story, it’ll look like he’s piggy-backing of the tabloids. And only the conspiracy theorists will believe him.”

“We’ll see, won’t we?” the administrator grumbled sourly, grimacing as he drank his tea. “You should have come to us first with it, Mycroft. You angered quite a few people with _this_ brainstorm.”


	14. Never Again

John looked over the newspaper he was reading at Sherlock. The detective was sitting at the kitchen table eyes glued to a microscope. Ever since the tabloid paper had published the story they’d fed it, Sherlock had considered the case over with. Experiments had taken precedence and he’d spent the last two days studying different slides.

“There’s been nothing else from Jeff Hill,” John commented, tapping at the picture in the paper with his finger. “The photos he’s been publishing have nothing to do with Mycroft. Or with anything in politics for that matter. I think this may be something we never need to worry about again.”

Sherlock grunted, not even bothering to look up from the microscope. There was a world of meaning in that grunt, a world John had become experienced at reading. There was sarcasm there, as if Sherlock didn’t quite believe it, along with satisfaction at a job well done. There was also the usual disdain towards his brother. 

“You don’t think it’s over?” John asked, getting up and moving behind Sherlock. He draped his arms over Sherlock’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to the nape of Sherlock’s neck. “He would have tried something by now.”

“I’m not so sure,” Sherlock said, looking up and leaning back into John. “I feel like this is just a break.”


	15. The Bright Side

Four days after the article on Mycroft appeared in the tabloids, Sherlock was sitting once again in Jeff Hill’s flat. Another article with a photo from the man had appeared in the paper that detailed a few of Mycroft’s more... clandestine efforts on behalf of the government. Jeff wasn’t stopping and he was fighting dirty. He was here without John this time, leaving their flat while the other man was out shopping. This time, he’d stepped outside a few laws and Sherlock didn’t want John involved. His patience now was about to pay off as a key rattled in the lock.

“I thought I told you not to come back,” Jeff said.

“You did,” Sherlock agreed. “Here’s how this is going to work. You stop writing and taking pictures of Mycroft and give me your source.”

“And if I don’t?” 

“Then I’m going to have to tell the drug cartel I stole a brick of cocaine from earlier where it’s hidden here,” Sherlock shrugged, affecting a careless air. “Then I’ll have to call the police about all the child pornography on your computer. Tut tut, Jeff.”

“That’s.... you can’t do this,” Jeff sputtered, face turning red.

“Look on the bright side: you had a good run,” Sherlock said. “Do yourself a favor and let this go. Don’t make me come back.”


	16. Chemicals

John watched Sherlock silently as he carefully poured a solution of chemicals from one beaker into another. They were caustic and could cause very serious burns if they touched bare skin. But Sherlock was a consummate scientist and the transfer occurred without even the slightest drop being spilled. It was then that John decided to speak.

“I saw the article Hill wrote,” he said conversationally, studying Sherlock’s hands. They would betray whether Sherlock knew anything. John had learned how to read Sherlock and his hands always gave him away. “Looks like he wasn’t done.”

“Maybe,” Sherlock mumbled, taking a glass rod and stirring the solution in the beaker. “Then again, maybe he is done.”

It had been four days since his little trip to Jeff’s flat and nothing had been published since then. It appeared that his little gambit into blackmail had worked. John didn’t seem to know anything about it but he seemed to know something was wrong. That was why he was pressing now.

“Where were you when I came back from shopping a few days ago?” John asked suddenly, eyes sharp. “You weren’t here.”

“I was at his flat,” Sherlock sighed, deciding not to lie. “I merely convinced him that it was in his best interest to leave Mycroft alone. Now I have a favor from my brother.”


	17. Game

“Well, this whole ridiculous game appears to be over,” the administrator told Mycroft three weeks later. They were in Mycroft’s office; his forced vacation had been rescinded two days ago. “Looks like your brother managed to stop that photographer.”

“Indeed,” Mycroft nodded, fingers resting on the edge of the desk. They moved slightly, feeling the heavy grain of the wood underneath. He’d missed his office and his desk but another part hadn’t. Another part had actually enjoyed the time away. “And the public has gone on to the most recent celebrity scandal.”

“I’m glad this has all worked out,” the administrator nodded, getting up and moving to the door. “This could have been so much worse. Tender our thanks to your brother and his partner.”

Mycroft nodded as the man saw himself out. There was a pile of paperwork on his desk that needed his attention but he wasn’t in all that much of a hurry to get to it. Life and the government had gone on with him gone. Maybe not quite as smoothly or how he would have done things, but it had. It reminded him that he was only one man, however much influence he might wield. This whole vacation might have been a good thing on several levels. Now it was time to leave the scandal behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is pretty much the end of my Lucky Timing series. Thank you, everyone, for reading and coming on the adventure with me. It was a lot of fun to write and try to stay within the constraints of the 221b ficlet format. I hope you enjoyed reading these as much as I enjoyed writing them.


End file.
